#1833 Add Named Auto-Type with display in Auto-Type Entry Selection dialog

[wellread1]

It would be easier to distinguish Auto-Type sequences in the Auto-Type Entry Selection dialog if it were possible to name the Auto-Type sequences and display the Auto-Type Name (or entry Title if no Name is defined) as the first column in the Auto-Type Entry Selection dialog.

I believe this might be accomplished without a database format change by either designating the last comment in an auto-type sequence as the Auto-Type Name, or with a new dedicated placeholder.

This feature would be especially helpful for users that prefer to store all related auto-type sequences in a single entry (e.g. bank login plus security question answers).

[Paul]

I use the comment place holder at the beginning of the Auto-Type sequence to differentiate.
e.g. {C:Date}{T-REPLACE-RX:#{S:Memorable Date}........

cheers, Paul

[wellread1]

Though I have tried using leading comments in auto-type sequences, I don't find them easy to grasp at a glance.

Instead I find that fast auto-type selection is facilitated best by placing the information most important to the selection in the leftmost position of a line. Also, if I do need to look at the auto-type field, the leading "{C:" characters of the comment placeholder slows my reading, and I would rather see the actual sequence instead of scanning a comment. Thus I create multiple related entries with distinctive entry Titles rather than use a leading comment in the auto-type sequence. Unfortunately that practice conflicts with my desire to consolidate related entries.

I think permitting individual auto-type sequence naming within an entry, and placing that name in the leftmost column of the Auto-Type Entry Selection would be a significant improvement.

[Paul]

I agree that the comment is not the most elegant method, it would be easier if the comment was interpreted as a title instead of showing as "C:.....".

cheers, Paul

[Dominik Reichl]

I've now added a sequence comments column in the auto-type entry selection dialog (which you can enable using the 'Options' button in this dialog).

Here's the latest development snapshot for testing:
http://keepass.info/filepool/KeePass_140310b.zip

Thanks and best regards,
Dominik

[Anonymous]

Thanks for adding this option. Maybe I'm overlooking the obvious, but where is the sequence - comments source field located to add information to it so that it will display when enabled? I've looked on the autotype tab but don't see it anywhere.

[Anonymous]

Please disregard...I figured it out.

[wellread1]

Thanks Dominik for adding the Sequence Comments to the auto-type selection. I see two functional limitations of the current implementation:

1. Users will need to invest a lot of effort to use the Sequence Comments if it is not possible to create a default sequence that produces a meaningful Auto-Type Entry Selection comment.
2. The current convention to display all comments in Auto-Type Entry Selection dialog, restricts other valid use of Comments (e.g. for in-line auto-type documentation). I think it is important to settle on the best convention before introducing the feature.

I have suggestions for both of these issues that I hope you will find attractive.

Redesign the {C:Comment} so that other placeholders can be used within it (Spr-compiled?).

A user could define a default auto-type sequence with a default Comment, {C:{USERNAME} - {URL}}, while a custom auto-type would use a fully customized Comment, {C:Comment}. After adopting this convention, the user would not display the username and URL fields in the Auto-Type Entry Selection dialog. I suspect redesigning the Comment placeholder would be both more consistent with your overall design and is significantly more flexible than my initial suggestion to use the Title as a default comment.

Adopt a convention to display only the last sequence Comment in the Auto-Type Entry Selection dialog.

Such a convention is easily documented and the approach preserves the multifunctional utility of the Comment placeholder as an internal documentation tool and for Auto-Type Entry Selection. Internally documenting auto-type can be important for documenting use of plugin defined placeholders, and may become more important as a result of the recent changes to the Auto-type engine. However the sequence documentation use is incompatible with the Auto-Type Entry Selection use. The latter use should never require more than a single comment.

---

For example a Steam on PC login auto-type workaround that I played with before you fixed the Steam specific auto-type issues could be usefully commented.

Uncommented sequence

{DELAY=20}{TAB 7}{HOME}{DELAY=1}{DELETE 50}{DELAY=20}{USERNAME}{TAB}{PASSWORD}{ENTER}

Commented sequence

{C:This sequence avoids key modifiers}{DELAY=20}{C:Use Tab 7 if cursor in username}{TAB 6}{HOME}{C:Delete as fast as possible}{DELAY=1}{C:Optimize delete to reliably clear username field}{DELETE 50}{C:Slow auto-type to reliable rate}{DELAY=20}{USERNAME}{TAB}{PASSWORD}{ENTER}{C:Steam PC login}

Only the last comment would be desirable to display in the Auto-Type Entry Selection dialog in order to distinguish this sequence from the webpage login sequence.

[Dominik Reichl]

I prefer to not Spr-compile comments. The rules for comments should be easy to understand (a '}' terminates the comment); if they would be Spr-compiled, people would have to keep rules in mind that comments follow and various unexpected behaviors could occur.

Instead of making the meaning of comments position-dependent (which does not feel like a good solution to me), I've now introduced important comments: if the sequence contains a comment starting with '!', only this comment will be shown in the sequence comments column. In your example, the last comment could read {C:!Steam PC login} (and it doesn't necessarily need to be at the end).

Latest development snapshot for testing:
http://keepass.info/filepool/KeePass_140311.zip

Thanks and best regards,
Dominik

[Paul]

Given the need to display the comment column I can only see this being used by diehards, so I'll stick to a comment at the front of the sequence.

cheers, Paul

[wellread1]

I like the new "Sequence - Comments" column. I have attached a couple of screen shots of a Bank login based on an actual set of entries in my database. The Bank name, icon and other sensitive information is changed to protect the innocent.

The Auto-Type Entry Selection dialog shown is produced from a single KeePass entry that generates a readable display. All information needed to make a selection is contained in the Title & Sequence-Comments columns alone, generated from a single comment in each sequence.

The former, comparable Auto-Entry Selection dialog, required five separate KeePass entries: one main entry for the complete login and User Name only selections, and four separate entries for the Password only and Security questions. The unused User Name field in the Password only & Security question entries contained the comments needed to distinguish them. The user could distinguish the complete login from the User Name only selection by either remembering their respective list position (1st & 2nd), or by inspecting the Sequence field.

Using the "Sequence - Comments" column, complete information enabling selection is displayed in two columns, whereas four columns were required before (Title, User Name, URL, & Sequence). An additional advantage is that sequence differentiating comments reside at a single location in the entry (the auto-type comment) instead of being adventitiously located in the User Name or Title fields, or by inspection of sequence for an embedded Comment. In principle even the Title field is optional, except that the icon is essential and the Title field can't be deselected.

I did notice that the either the "Sequence - Comment" construction function trims leading spaces or the column display ignores them. Leading spaces could be used to advantage to create indented displays in some cases. The issue is evident in the password only, username only and secret question sequences of the screen shot that includes the sequence column.

[Dominik Reichl]

Yes, KeePass does trim leading and trailing whitespaces from the comments. The idea behind this was to leave users the freedom of using whitespaces for readability (e.g. some users might prefer {C: Text} or {C: Text } instead of {C:Text} in the sequence) without breaking the sequence comments column display.

If you want to indent items, my suggestion would be to prefix the indentation by a reasonable non-whitespace character, e.g. a bullet ('•', U+2022). This results in a list like in the following screenshot:
http://keepass.info/filepool/at_seqsel.png

Best regards,
Dominik

[wellread1]

Thanks for the tip. Horizontal ellipsis work well ('…', U+2026).

[Anonymous]

Just out of curiosity...what does the {S: } field represent and how is it different from {C: }? I didn't see it in the documentation.

[wellread1]

{S:Fieldname} is the placeholder for custom fields (e.g. a field called Fieldname)
{C:Comment} is the placeholder for a comment. In the screen shots some Comments were chosen to match a Fieldname.

Custom fields are created and managed in an entry's Advanced tab.